Attempting to add another piece to Real World Mathematics.
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A couple years ago I decided that I was using the 'A but B so C' structure WAY too often in my writing, and tried to control it. But when I tried to look for an example just now, I couldn't find one. So my caution must have been misplaced.
Wait! There's an example, just above! Why didn't I see that one when I was scanning?
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Aside from metafun, it's a common construction in all writing because it reflects a basic part of life.
Living organisms and living civilizations depend on A but B so C.
Every time we resist raw inorganic nature (A) we are placing a B in opposition to nature, so we can enjoy Comfort.
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Air conditioning is the B opposing the sun's A.
Sun but cooler so comfort.
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Our nervous system is entirely based on Excite but Inhibit so Behavior.
Every neuron has excitatory and inhibitory inputs. The excitatory inputs increase the response, the inhibitory (negative feedback) inputs decrease the response. In this example, Happystar's appetite is exciting his mouth and salivary glands; his memory of the result of uncontrolled hunger inhibits the response.
Many of our inhibitory responses are abstract like Happystar's mirror. Sometimes we create our own backwash from experience, and sometimes we let broader experience (Natural Law or written law) provide the backwash.
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Overall, belief systems are meant to occupy the B side, the inhibitory side, of this balancing act.
Appetite but Belief so Civilization.
Modern belief systems, starting with Robespierre and Locke and continuing through Lincoln and Marx and Mao and Rand, have taken over the A side of the formula. The B side is gone. We're stuck in the delusion that our beliefs are the FIRST AND ONLY force in the universe.
"Science", formerly based on observed reality, is now all belief. Economies, formerly based on MAKING AND SELLING REAL THINGS, are now based on credit, which is literally and etymologically a belief. Governments, formerly based on facts processed through juries and legislatures, are now based solely on raw lunacy which MUST BE BELIEVED OR YOU DIE.
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Is it possible to incorporate this into a math system? Suggested** symbols:
A ` B = C
The downward apostrophe is an attempt to show that B is a 'pulldown' against A.
In some cases the ` reduces to simple subtraction, but usually the pulldown has a delayed phase aspect. A raises the response first. B is partly from direct negative feedback and partly from accumulated wisdom or remembered feedback. C tends to jump or overshoot before B takes hold.
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**Symbolic footnote: The backslash would have been more visually appropriate, but backslashes are overused in programming, so the unused reverse apostrophe will have to do.

About Me

Polistra was named after the original townsite of Manhattan (the one in Kansas). When I was growing up in Manhattan, I spent a lot of time exploring by foot, bike, and car. I discovered the ruins of an old mill along Wildcat Creek, and decided (inaccurately) that it was the remains of the original site of Polistra. Accurate or not, I've always liked the name, with its echoes of Poland (an under-appreciated friend of freedom) and stars. ==== The title icon is explained here. ==== Switchover: This 2007 entry marks a sharp change in worldview from neocon to pure populist. ===== The long illustrated story of Polistra's Dream is a time-travel fable, attempting to answer the dangerous revision of New Deal history propagated by Amity Shlaes. The Dream has 8 episodes, linked in a chain from the first. This entry explains the Shlaes connection.